Nine Books to Read for Earth Month

In 2025, Getty started an informal book club for staff as part of building camaraderie and our sustainability knowledge “chops.”

Named Getty EcoReads, our little group takes turns selecting our readings, which has led to a variety of intriguing—even surprising—finds for our members. Though our book club is for staff, this Earth Month (April) we invite you to take a peek into what we’ve been reading and discussing. Whether you’re looking to build your “optimism muscles” for the climate crisis or simply want to recognize the native plants in your own backyard, these selections offer ways to be a good steward of the planet we call home.

Maya Wisdom and the Survival of Our Planet

Lisa J. Lucero

Non-Mayans can learn from Mayan ancestors and their descendants about ways to thrive cooperatively with our fellow creatures and planet through a mindset and practices that could help address some of our current environmental and social challenges.

This was our kickoff title! One of our curators, David Saunders—who is now employed at the British Museum—noticed a talk by the author being given at UCLA. We decided that it would be interesting to read the book and invite others at Getty to join us, and thus was born Getty EcoReads. This volume offers one entry point to reflect on stewardship practices of past ancestors and present land custodians on how to work with and be a part of nature. Almost all cultures throughout human history have had some form of traditional ecological knowledge and shared in the transformation of our environment. What do we do with these complicated—sometimes contradictory—impulses? I find myself thinking about these types of questions all the time.

The End of Night: Searching for Natural Darkness in an Age of Artificial Light

Paul Bogard

Humans seem to have an inherent impulse to resist darkness—think of our campfires, a child’s desire for a night-light to repel monsters, and our relentless installation of nighttime illumination. Why do we think lighting up the dark makes us safer? And what happens when we leave the lights on all night?

We live in Los Angeles, where it is hard to find a dark night sky and see the stars. We wanted to discuss what all this night lighting is doing to our bodies and brains and to the animals and plants in our biodiversity hotspot.

Fathoms: The World in the Whale

Rebecca Giggs

Whales, the largest mammal, are charismatic ocean dwellers. What is their report from the field? How are the oceans doing? How are we doing? When the author encountered a stranded humpback whale on her local Australian beach, she was inspired to understand a whale’s perspective of human-caused environmental change.

We humans are essentially bound in our minds; it is very difficult to achieve a different perspective. Yet we often try—through art, disembodying experiences like psychedelic use and trance dancing, and so forth—to break through to other ways of knowing and seeing. Considering the world from a whale’s perspective helps us gain insight and find new, creative, and hopeful ways to understand how tied our human fate is to that of our planet and fellow creatures.

Playing Possum: How Animals Understand Death

Susana Monsó

As we discussed Fathoms, several of us wondered aloud about the perception and understanding of death as a whale beaches itself. We also noted that death and its avoidance play a role in museums. We attempt to keep culture—its objects and stories—alive for our future and work actively to stave off its “death.” Putting these two musings together, we decided we wanted to learn more about how nonhumans perceive the concept of death.

This curiosity—and the fact that death is such a powerful driver of human experience of the world—led us to read this book. The author conducts a thought experiment on whether animals understand death. In a nutshell, yes, sort of, and not like humans. Do yourself a favor, though, and read this remarkable piece on what death is and means.

The Future We Choose: Surviving the Climate Crisis

Christiana Figueres and Tom Rivett-Carnac

The authors, who led the negotiations for the Paris Climate Agreement of 2015, postulate that there are two climate crisis scenarios for us. Either we fail to take action and exacerbate the economic, social, and environmental consequences, or we rise to the occasion, as people have done before, and find our better selves to tackle the problem with a regenerative approach to make our lives better and planet healthier.

Optimism and a will to fight are critical 21st-century “muscles” to build. Sustainability is about humans: the planet will be here whether we are thriving or struggling on it. The future is ours to choose. Will we choose wisely and make our future selves—our grandchildren—proud?

The California Field Atlas

Obi Kaufmann

This is a delightful book that marries art, ecology, geography, and cartography to show us a new perspective on California. Adding to its infectiousness, the author’s gorgeous watercolors illustrate his deep research—and deep love—of California’s ecosystems.

Wild LA: Explore the Amazing Nature in and Around Los Angeles

Lila Higgins and Gregory B. Pauly with Jason G. Goldman and Charles Hood

This book, written by Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County researchers, is a joyful celebration of LA as a biodiversity hotspot. On the plus side, we have at least 1,500 endemic plant species (that grow nowhere else), and on the down side, at least 70 percent of the original habitat where these plants grow has been lost to development and other changes.

It’s good to know your neighborhood and neighbors! We are in Los Angeles—who else do we share this golden place with? What is their animal and plant experience of LA compared to our human experience of LA? And what happens when we meet, maybe even in our driveways or backyards?

Overdressed: The Shockingly High Cost of Cheap Fashion

Elizabeth L. Cline

We all wear clothes. And people often enjoy expressing their personality and style through their attire. But how did we get to the point where most of our apparel is “fast fashion” and we own more garments than ever? Our shift to buying lots of cheap clothing and shoes is creating an outsized environmental burden, from greenhouse gas emissions, water pollution from dyeing, extractive agriculture, exploitive child labor practices, and literal boatloads of trash. What is a possible path forward for fashion that embraces the joy and fun of personal style, but with responsible production and consumption?

This 2012 book looks at how the apparel and footwear industry evolved to a model of rapid and “cheap” production to both drive and meet rapacious consumption, and it still holds up 14 years later. The author highlights some ideas for shifting away from these patterns, but the solutions are mainly targeted at the consumer instead of structural industry problems. In the past five years, however, New York’s Fashion Accountability Act and California’s Fashion Environmental Accountability Act were proposed to systemically address these challenges. This type of twofold approach—individual choices and actions taken together with collective, system-level change—is generally necessary to achieve healthier outcomes. One without the other is rarely sufficient.

California Against the Sea

Rosanna Xia

California’s coast is so many things for people: a modern mythology, a liminal edge for our continent, a promise, and a vulnerability. The author makes the case in her book that with climate change bearing down on us, the future of California’s coastline and the roughly 27 million people and countless plants and animals living near it depends on which future we choose. Will we follow an approach that devolves into essentially a Groundhog Day scenario of constant and expensive disaster recovery, or one that wisely and inclusively stewards our coastline?

Our own Getty Villa is on the coast, and many of our staff and visitors live within the coastal zone. With our mission to protect and share the cultural heritage under our stewardship, and to co-steward the land we are on, we must understand and thoughtfully address what lies ahead.

We are also honored that the author has kindly accepted our invitation to join the April meeting, where we’ll discuss her book together with our scholars.

The Getty Library has over a million books and periodicals, photographs, and artist archives that cover all eras of human history as it relates to art. We invite the public to get a Getty Library card, and stay plugged into our readings on the Getty Sustainability page. It’s a learning journey together!